Living in London

I am in the second week of my new job and it is every bit as interesting, challenging and rewarding as I had hoped. I am working with a great group of people. My re-entry into the working world is going well.

My only challenge is that I am in the northwest of England which appears to be a bit of a technological backwater. I have no access to personal email or web sites during the work day (probably a good thing) but I wasn't prepared for the lack of WiFi or other high-speed internet access after work. There is no Starbucks and the Internet café that I found is actually in the office of a local real estate agent who put a folding table in the corner of his office and hooked up three PCs to his broadband connection. He calls this the CyberCafé. Unfortunately, the CyberCafé closes each evening at 6:00 PM — when the real estate agent goes home for the evening. I have managed to find only two hotels in the area with WiFi access and I am not currently staying at either of them.

Each evening I make a 10 minute walk to the neighbouring hotel for a fix of broadband. I get 2 hours or 75 MB of downloads for £5. By the time I retrieve my 80 - 90 emails and download a few of my favourite podcasts, I use up the 75 MB limit long before my 2 hours are up. To make it more challenging, there is a convention of senior citizens in this hotel the last couple of days. At the moment, someone is crooning Why Do Fools Fall In Love over a makeshift sound system in the lobby and encouraging people to join in the sing-a-long. Alas my voice just isn't up to it this evening.

It is difficult to keep up with the blog posts while sitting in a hotel lobby and with such limited access to the world. If all goes well, I will be staying at a hotel next week with high speed access. Ahh, to be reconnected again.